The Whiskey Sour is a true classic that has somewhat fallen out of favor because it is very difficult to get made well in a bar. Even if your bartender isn’t using commercial sour mix, he or she has to be willing and able to adjust the sweetness to your taste. Much like lemonade, everyone has a slightly different preference between mouth-puckeringly sour and syrupy sweet and so this is really a drink that you need to adjust to you or your customer’s taste, recipes aside. However, as a starting point, I humbly submit mine to be used as a starting point for your own.

Whiskey Sour

• 2 oz whiskey
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz simple syrup (1:1)

Stir all ingredients in a rocks glass to dissolve syrup; add ice and stir until cold. OR shake and strain over ice if you like it frothy. If you like it really frothy, shake ‘dry’ with about half an egg white before shaking with ice. I often serve/drink these on the rocks, but they can also be served up in a chilled glass. One popular garnish is a maraschino cherry, but I usually use a lemon twist.

While almost any blended whiskey will work for this drink, I usually go for a straight bourbon. Nothing too fancy, maybe Evan Williams black label, Elijah Craig 12 year, or Buffalo Trace.

Variations

The Sour is an eminently versatile drink for substitutions. This drink is kind of a ‘cold toddy’, and indeed, honey as the sweetener is a fine variation. To aid in dissolving the honey, pre-mix a syrup from equal parts honey and water. I also really enjoy using demerara syrup because it always seems to work well with whiskey drinks. And rum ones too, for that matter.

Other base spirits, such as rye whiskey, brandy, rum or even tequila all respond well to this basic template. A rum sour with lime is, of course, a Daiquiri, and a tequila sour with lime and a bit of orange liqueur is a Margarita, and a Cosmopolitan is not far off. Add a little grenadine to the base recipe and you’ve got a Ward 8.

To be honest, the primary reason that I make Whiskey Sours is to use up lemons that have been denuded to make garnish for other drinks! After you’ve made a number of Whiskey Cocktails, it seems a shame to throw out the lemon. However, the Whiskey Sour is a drink that anyone who wants to call themselves a bartender should have in their repertoire because it really is a template for so many drinks, as well as being quite tasty on its own.

While I feel like I buy bourbon whiskey more often than other spirits, I can’t say that bourbon is my favorite spirit to mix with; I’m much more likely to drink it on the rocks or in a Whiskey Cocktail (basically an Old-Fashioned without fruit). But there are a few drinks that I make regularly using bourbon. For mixing, I recommend using an affordable bourbon like Evan Williams black label or even the Elijah Craig 12 year old. There’s really no need to go to more expensive ’single barrel’ or ’small batch’ bottlings. Unless that’s just ‘how you roll’, in which case you should invite me over for drinks sometime.

One of my favorite variations on the tried-and-true Champagne Cocktail is the Kentucky Champagne Cocktail, which is nothing more than a Champagne Cocktail with a shot of bourbon in it.

Kentucky Champagne Cocktail

• Put a sugar cube in a largish champagne glass and soak with 3-6 dashes of Angostura bitters.  Then add:
• 1 oz bourbon
• Fill with champagne or other bubbly (Segura Viuda Cava, recommended)

Other bitters will work, especially orange bitters, but the venerable Angostura is my current favorite for this drink. This one isn’t too far from the classic Seelbach Cocktail either – just up the Ango. to 7 dashes, add 7 more dashes of Peychaud’s and 1/2 oz of Cointreau and you’re there.

One thing to note when making this, or any other champagne cocktail, is to be very careful when pouring the bubbly, as it tends to foam up dramatically when poured onto the sugar cube.

Another drink that I make at home (mostly because they are almost impossible  to get made well away from home) is a Whiskey Sour. I’m most likely to make this to use up some extra lemon juice, or to use a lemon that has been thoroughly peeled for garnish. I’ve recently added a variation on the Whiskey Sour to my repertoire, the Port Light.

Port Light – from Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log

• 1 oz bourbon
• 1 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz passion fruit syrup
• 1 Tbsp grenadine

Blend with 1 cup crushed ice for 5 seconds and pour into a collins glass.

This is quite tasty – there is more going on in the glass than a traditional Whiskey Sour. The tartness is nicely balanced and given depth by the passion fruit and grenadine. I’m using a homemade passion fruit syrup from the clear part of a settled out Looza passion fruit nectar and sugar.

There are more bourbon drinks out there than you would think, once you start looking. Whiskey Smash, Mint Julep, Manhattan, Bourbon Crusta, Honi Honi – what’s your favorite bourbon drink?